


sticking around

by powerandpathos



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: Falling In Love, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:40:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23427889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/powerandpathos/pseuds/powerandpathos
Summary: ‘You’re awfully bold lately.’I know,Guan Shan thinks.Love is making me stupid and brave.‘D’you mind?’ he asks. He knows his gestures of affection are hard to win—harder to receive of their own accord. Something—this morning’s epiphany—has made him want to give them more freely. But he was right, earlier: He Tian likes the challenge. Fear stabs at him, precise. Maybe He Tian won’t want him anymore.‘Not in the slightest,’ He Tian replies.[Request: 19 Days - Guan Shan in Love]
Relationships: He Tian/Mo Guanshan (19 Days), Jian Yi/Zhan Zhengxi (19 Days)
Comments: 65
Kudos: 836





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A continuation of a [Tumblr prompt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22879804/chapters/54688840), where Guan Shan realises he's fallen in love with He Tian. Thank you so much to [Merlin](https://beautifulboysbeingbusy.tumblr.com/) for requesting this fic. It was a lovely concept to explore. 
> 
> I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe! If you would like to have a fic written for you, please visit my [Tumblr](agapaic.tumblr.com) to see how!

Nothing changes. There is no physical, quantum adjustment to time or the smoothness with which it flows, treacle-like through Guan Shan’s bedroom. The world does not tilt outside his bedroom window, the sun falling from the sky and the stars sifting upwards around a bright moon; there is no change of seasons, spring-pink pollen studding the ends of branches blooming and withering in a blink. A woman walks her dog below on the street, speaking into her phone; a child potters along with its plump fist smothered by her father’s as she walks in her uniform to school. They don’t disappear, their trajectory pre-ordained. 

Guan Shan’s heart thuds with its new realisation, some kind of cavity opening up behind his rib cage, but the world does not stop. What Guan Shan had thought unlikely—no, _impossible_ —happens, one unavoidable truth sliding into the next. It keeps him grounded, keeps him sane—that the roots he has buried of himself into the soil continue to grow, that the earth beneath him does not shake.

Guan Shan takes a step. He takes another. 

He Tian is outside, waiting for him while he endures his private revelation, and Guan Shan thinks about the Japanese phrase _koi no yokan._ Love at second sight. Love in a measure of inevitability. They’ve gotten this far, Guan Shan falling out of hate and into something else, less secure and less certain, less easier to pit himself against, and now they’re at the final stop. 

He’s driven himself there—it shouldn’t come as such a shock now that he’s climbing out onto solid ground, familiarising himself with these new surroundings, wiggling his toes like shoving them into the sand of a beach he’s never visited before, not far from home, but needing the impetus—the willingness to explore.

It takes him five minutes. He knows He Tian will be waiting patiently outside, won’t ask him again (he’ll come when he’s ready), and when he finally cracks open the bedroom door, He Tian has his eyebrows risen, leaning against the back of the sofa. He’s wearing a leather jacket and jeans, has his car keys looped around the forefinger of his left hand, and Guan Shan wanders over to him with the space between them like newly uncharted territory. Where, he thinks, is he supposed to put his hands. How close, he wonders, is he allowed to move? Here? Or here? Perhaps here.

‘Are you sure you’re okay? We can stay in, if you want—’ 

Guan Shan grips his arm, hard enough to pinch, and pulls him to the door. Guan Shan has learned something over the past few years: He Tian is susceptible, and he accepts Guan Shan’s shifting moods with dry humour and an ease that is almost unnerving. Guan Shan has only to tug on his arm, suggest movement or change, and He Tian will comply, utterly complicit. 

So when Guan Shan drags him out, down the stairs to the basement parking lot, He Tian only follows with a loosely bewildered grin, content to be manoeuvred so long as Guan Shan is there, too.

***

The restaurant is half-full this time of morning, couples and friends congregating over wonton soup and bitter salads dressed with salted Chinese almonds. Guan Shan can taste the umami of seaweed and sesame oil in the air as the doors close behind them. He Tian orders for the both of them: wonton soup and a dish of sesame seed buns freshly baked and still warm as He Tian tears them apart.

‘There’s a job offer next week,’ He Tian tells him, putting the bigger half of a bun onto Guan Shan’s side plate. ‘They want to station me in Chengdu.’

Guan Shan, not missing a beat, says, ‘Thought we didn’t talk about that shit on weekends.’

‘We don’t,’ He Tian agrees. Guan Shan can see the way he’s holding himself, the way he rests one elbow on the table, holds his soup spoon comfortably tight in his hand. He affects the allusion of comfort—of ease—but Guan Shan knows he’s approaching this with the wariness of a man handling a feral fox come in through his back door at night. ‘But I’d have to leave tomorrow.’

The wontons are good—dried shrimp, egg, the soup salty and rich but not too oily, but Guan Shan’s palate has dulled, the skin of the wontons sticking in his throat like a lump he can’t swallow down. _No,_ he wants to say. _I’m in love with you and now you’re gonna fucking leave?_

‘How long for?’ he says instead.

‘I didn’t get that information,’ He Tian says, lifting a shoulder. ‘It could be a week. It could be more. You know what they’re like in the briefs.’ Something must show on Guan Shan’s expression, because he adds with an air of veiled indifference: ‘I can say no, if you want me to. There’ll be other opportunities.’

There will be. They don’t need the money; He Tian’s contracts come and go with the certain ease of monsoon winds, and the territory of He Tian being the son of his father and the brother of He Cheng. Well-connected, wanting for nothing, and answering the call of violence and death in a fashion that was almost ordained. Guan Shan can’t tell him otherwise.

‘You should go.’

He Tian looks at him. Guan Shan looks back. He can hear his own breathing.

Eventually, He Tian says, ‘Okay.’

Guan Shan looks at his soup, at the dish of bao buns that have been newly placed on the corner of their table by a passing waitress. He picks one up between his chopsticks, offers it up with a hand placed carefully beneath to catch anything that could spill. 

He Tian glances between the _baozi_ and Guan Shan’s face, as if trying to unveil some deception, to understand the punchline beneath a grand joke Guan Shan is playing at his expense. Finding nothing, he leans in, wraps his lips around the offered morsel of food, and leans back, chewing. 

‘How is it?’ Guan Shan asks, voice sounding gruff to his own ears.

‘We’ve been coming here for three years,’ He Tian replies. ‘You always thought it was gross when other couples did that.’

Guan Shan looks away. ‘Can change my mind, can’t I?’

He Tian chews still, slow. ‘You’re a fucking rock, Mo Guan Shan. You don’t move for anyone.’ He adds, wryly, ‘It’s a part of your charm.’

‘You mean it’s a challenge,’ Guan Shan corrects. He Tian thirsts for reaction in the same way, sometimes, that She Li used to. Prodding and goading; satisfied when Guan Shan smarts with shock or shame, biting at the end of the stick. It’s not often, anymore—the provocation has softened to a dull nudge that Guan Shan blinks at, bats away like a fly in summer heat. 

‘Who can blame me?’ He Tian says, kicking his feet out beneath the table so the toe of his boot brushes against Guan Shan’s ankle. ‘I like it when you squirm.’

Guan Shan refuses him the opportunity, feels the pink touch his cheeks only softly, and gets the bill. He pays for the both of them, heavy-handed with his money when he has it. His publicist deposited his latest advance last week, and seeing the figures in his bank account weigh on him like a security blanket.

‘I need to go to my place,’ He Tian says, sounding grim. ‘I’ll need a few things before tomorrow.’

 _My place_ , Guan Shan hears. It’s a boundary between the two of them that he has yet to break down—that he hadn’t yet wanted to—and now… It’s offensive. The mile radius setting apart their two apartments is a disparate river severing apart the city that they now have to cross. Unless away for work, Guan Shan doesn’t remember the last time He Tian didn’t sleep in his bed; at the thought of He Tian getting up and announcing he’s going home, to _his place_ , he now recognises the feeling in his stomach. Something, he supposes, like dread.

‘Do you want to come with?’ He Tian asks.

‘Sure.’

He Tian pauses as he gets to his feet, tugging his jacket from the back of his chair. ‘You don’t want to write?’

‘It’s the weekend,’ Guan Shan says, moving towards the door. ‘Feng Liu doesn’t want the next batch of pages until Friday.’

They head out onto the street, where the sky is so hazy with grey that Guan Shan, squinting upwards, can’t tell if the sky is blue or building up a storm. Red carnations hang in baskets from the awning of the restaurant, and the floral redolence is choking. 

‘A comfortable deadline hasn’t stopped you every weekend before,’ He Tian reminds him jokingly. ‘If only our middle school teachers could see you now.’ He says, with a touch of teasing fondness: ‘So diligent.’

‘Still wouldn’t be good enough for half of ‘em.’

He Tian rolls his eyes, plants a kiss on Guan Shan’s temple, and Guan Shan lets him. Briefly, he indulges in the feeling of being touched, of having others—strangers—see that he receives affection, and could deserve it. When He Tian pulls away, his dark eyes are tracing Guan Shan’s face, searching.

‘What?’ Guan Shan asks, self-conscious, wanting to take a step back.

‘You seem…’ He Tian tilts his head. ‘I can’t put my finger on it. Like you’ve taken a handful of benzos.’

Guan Shan’s features pull into a scowl. ‘Fuck off.’

‘I only mean that—’ He Tian breaks off, laughing. A grin splits his lips apart, and Guan Shan wants him to laugh again. He laughs easily, but rarely naturally, startled by the sound each time as if he’s forgotten what it has the opportunity to sound like when he means it. ‘I mean that you’re particularly amenable today.’

‘Amenable.’

‘Mm,’ He Tian says, eyes bright. He winds an arm around Guan Shan’s waist, a hand resting, possessive, on his hip, and presses his lips close to Guan Shan’s ear. His voice is a low hum that shivers in the air: ‘Like I could coerce you into doing anything.’

Guan Shan glances upwards. ‘Anythin’?’

He Tian smiles, lips curved with promise, and pulls back. 

***

He Tian’s apartment has been unchanged, for the most part, since middle school. Guan Shan has never met the uncle he spoke of, the man perpetually abroad, or working—or dead. Some days, Guan Shan wonders if he even exists at all. It’s still largely empty, half-lived in, an expensive half-way house that He Tian visits from time to time. 

The question goes unasked—why He Tian doesn’t just move all his things over to Guan Shan’s; why he bothers with the pretense of having his own place at all. But Guan Shan knows it’s largely for his benefit. He Tian would’ve had a ring on his finger by their high school graduation, if he’d thought Guan Shan would say yes. He would’ve moved Guan Shan and his mother out of their apartment and into his own, if he’d thought they didn’t have more pride than leaching from the hospitality of a fifteen-year-old with too much money.

A cleaner comes in once a month to dust and mop the floors, and there’s a clinical echo and a waft of bleach and vinegar when the front door clicks shut behind them. 

‘Home sweet home,’ He Tian murmurs as they slip off their shoes. 

Guan Shan perches on a bar stool while He Tian moves into his bedroom, listening for sounds of dresser drawers sliding open and a holdall bag being unzipped. He pictures He Tian kneeling on the floor, picking out plain clothes and a few smarter pieces. Wherever he’ll be going in Chengdu, Guan Shan’s sure he must know more than he lets on. He’s seen a glimpse of He Tian’s briefings before, littered with diagrams and satellite imagery, blueprints and contact profiles. He Tian reads it all, swallows the data whole, shreds the document before it has a chance to exist for long.

Guan Shan has learnt not to ask too many questions, certain that he won’t like the answers.

‘I won’t be long,’ He Tian says from his bedroom. ‘Make tea, if you want.’

Guan Shan doesn’t. He’s still full from brunch, the faded adrenaline from this morning’s revelation dressing him with a tiredness that adds a weight to his eyelids and makes him want to sleep. The couch in the living area is hard and unused, expensive but unyielding, as if to remind its occupants of its worth at any moment of slight comfort, and the TV spreads itself out widely against a wall. Guan Shan sets himself down in front of it and flicks mindlessly through its channels—cooking, a football match—and settles on a documentary of a couple hiking their way through Jiuzhaigou National Park.

‘We could do that.’ 

Guan Shan jumps, turning in his seat. ‘Hiking?’

He Tian has his hands on the back of the sofa, framing Guan Shan’s shoulders, and leans into them. ‘Two hundred and seventy miles of forests and lakes, camping under the stars… It’s a short flight from Chengdu.’ 

‘You want to?’ Guan Shan asks. ‘You don’t like leavin’ the city.’

He Tian denies it, but they both know it’s true. A childhood of isolation has cemented in him a perpetual need for company, whether in his lover or the vague nearness of a stranger on the street. It’s a duty Guan Shan has fulfilled with contented ease—rewarded for simply _being_. It used to annoy him, how He Tian would call him seconds after a farewell, as if they’d last seen each other weeks ago and not moments; how He Tian would turn up in the middle of the night with no thought of calling ahead, as if He Tian’s own presence were perpetually wanted and needed by Guan Shan in the same way he needed it. 

It is, in a way. Wanted. Needed. But it doesn’t stem from the intoxication of loneliness; the never-ending ache that needs to be filled. Guan Shan’s want-need is a product of self-sufficiency—of knowing that his own efforts are enough, sometimes, and that with He Tian there’s simply more. He Tian is a shadow at his back, a second helping hand, another set of eyes that could see the danger.

There’s a breathless relief in knowing that if he lets his gaze slip, if his step falters, his hands fumble, then all will not be lost. With He Tian, he can allow himself to sleep. Allow the taut muscles of his back to unwind like the complicated sequence of a locking door. Allow himself to rest.

That, in itself, is a feeling that makes him drunk. Makes him scared as hell, too. Reliance will kill him if he isn't careful. One day, he’ll wait for the shadow, the steady form at his back, and it won’t be there. He’ll stumble and fall on his face, no hand to break the fall, nose bloodied and broken on a pavement or a fist, and he’ll tell himself _I told you so._

He Tian has made him complicit in all of this, a willing ally, and Guan Shan can’t begrudge him a thing.

‘I wouldn’t mind it,’ He Tian says now. He’s leaning close, his jaw brushing against Guan Shan’s hair, a light haze of stubble threatening to rasp at the skin on Guan Shan’s temple. ‘It would be romantic, wouldn’t it? You and me. Cosying up in a sleeping bag. You wouldn’t have to be quiet.’

‘Fuck off,’ Guan Shan tells him, but he’s smiling. Sometimes, he can’t help it. ‘You can have your own bag—you sweat in your sleep.’

‘Not unnatural,’ He Tian points out.

‘It’s fuckin’ gross. You’re like a fuckin’ furnace.’

‘That’s all you, babe. You get me like that—all hot and bothered.’

Guan Shan knocks his head back into He Tian’s jaw, the brush-off making He Tian laugh at his little victory. They don’t acknowledge that He Tian’s sweating is a symptom of his night terrors, his sleep paralysis, his choked fevers that he wakes from with a strangled scream and arms flailing. He’s caught Guan Shan across the face once or twice, a breath-stealing punch to the sternum, come to full consciousness while he takes in the sight of Guan Shan’s swollen eye or bloodied lip, and hated himself for days. 

It happens less these days, but Guan Shan wonders what images play on the back of his eyelids when he sleeps—or tries to. A small weight sits in his stomach—like stone fruit, the core of a peach or nectarine—when he thinks about the possibility of He Tian leaving for a job and coming back a little bit chipped away every time. A little more prone to swinging his fist in the violent throes of sleep.

Guan Shan can’t have it both ways: he can’t have that calculative shadow who knows where to block if he won’t accept that it needs to sharpen its skills like a sword at a whetstone. 

‘Maybe,’ is all Guan Shan says now. He ventures, keeping his tone vague: ‘Our anniversary’s in three weeks. It’ll be two years. When you’re done in Chengdu, we could go to Jiuzhaigou.’

He Tian pulls back, and Guan Shan has to turn his head, neck twisting, to look up at him. His expression is unreadable, eyes unblinking and intense. 

‘I didn’t… realise you were counting,’ He Tian says, voice strange, a little tight. ‘When did we become official?’

Guan Shan shrugs, turns back to the TV. ‘First night you came over, I guess.’

‘And you want to celebrate it?’ He Tian asks. There’s a note of wariness too, the same fragment that had existed in his look at the café, when Guan Shan held up a morsel of _baozi_ for him to taste. ‘If the job is done, I could book dinner—there’s a restaurant that overlooks the Nuorilang Waterfall.’

‘If you want,’ Guan Shan says. ‘I don’t mind.’

A beat passes, an element of truth dropping between them like the _plink_ of a stone hitting the surface of a still lake. Guan Shan says nothing he doesn’t mean wholly, entirely. 

‘Mo Guan Shan,’ He Tian says, ‘have you always been a closet romantic? Have you been watching _So Young_ when I’m not around? _My Old Classmate? The Notebook?_ ’ He climbs over the top of the sofa, face close to Guan Shan’s, eyes wide with a childish, indulgent delight. He paws at Guan Shan. ‘Do you have a lock of my hair under your pillow?’

Guan Shan knocks him away. ‘I’ll rip out more than your hair in a minute,’ he grumbles. 

‘Is that foreplay?’ He Tian asks, unrelenting. Somehow, he’s even closer. His breath washes over Guan Shan’s face; he’s pulled his knees up and they jab into Guan Shan’s side, toes digging into Guan Shan’s thigh. 

‘Go pack,’ Guan Shan says. ‘I hate how this place echoes.’

‘You mean to say you don’t like the sound of your own voice?’ 

‘Not as much as you do.’

He Tian smirks at the insult, knowing Guan Shan’s brand of flirtation comes with a sharp tongue and a jab beneath the ribs. But then he goes quiet. Guan Shan, eyes steady on the screen, revealing lush Sichuan forests and rivers undulating through its valleys, knows He Tian is watching him. He’s prone to it—open, faultless staring that Guan Shan feels on his skin like stepping out into the humidity of a Beijing summer. 

Guan Shan gets his fill of He Tian’s sharp features and long, dark lashes when He Tian sleeps, when he’s drunk, when he’s poring over a new memo or contract briefing and can set his mind to nothing else—no notice of the feeling of being watched. The vulnerabilities—those are the moments when Guan Shan drinks him down.

He Tian doesn’t have the same sort of manners—or the same self-consciousness. He watches Guan Shan with the air of someone who wants it known that he’s looking. And Guan Shan knows he’s looking. He feels it.

‘Rude to stare,’ Guan Shan says, the words coming out quieter than he meant them to, the echo soft.

‘I think it would be impolite not to,’ He Tian says. ‘I have you right here in front of me. I should take the opportunity where I can get it.’

Something in it strikes a chord in Guan Shan, and he turns his head so his eyes, levelled and equal with He Tian’s, stare back. 

It takes a moment to adjust; he feels the embarrassment tugging at him, wanting to pull away his gaze, the discomfort at meeting another set of eyes considering him with so much scrutiny. But the sensation fades, the spike of fear settling into a lull. What he’d thought was scrutiny turns into admiration, the sweeping look of an artist observing a finished piece—no time now for criticism or self-doubt— 

‘You’re awfully bold lately.’

 _I know,_ Guan Shan thinks. _Love is making me stupid and brave._

‘D’you mind?’ he asks. He knows his gestures of affection are hard to win—harder to receive of their own accord. Something—this morning’s epiphany—has made him want to give them more freely. But he was right, earlier: He Tian likes the challenge. Fear stabs at him, precise. Maybe He Tian won’t want him anymore.

‘Not in the slightest,’ He Tian replies, nearly a murmur, and relief washes through Guan Shan like breaking the surface of tumultuous waters and managing to swallow a lungful of air. ‘It makes me feel like I know where I stand. Not that I couldn’t guess at it, but…’ He shakes his head. ‘You don’t want me to go tomorrow, do you?’

Guan Shan looks away. ‘You’re gonna go whether I want you to or not. Don’t act like I have a fuckin’ say in it.’

‘I have a say. And you have more influence than you think.’

‘What’s the point? You don’t go this time, but you’ll go next time. It’s not like you’re gonna retire.’

‘Retire?’ He Tian echoes, lips rounded with a smile. ‘I’m still a way off thirty, sweetheart. What am I going to do for the rest of my miserable life?’

 _Be with me._ ‘Work remotely. Consult in the city.’ Guan Shan shrugs. ‘Could be my manager, if you wanted.’

He Tian chuckles. ‘Arrange your TV appearances and publishing deals? Your sales would plummet. You don’t want to work with me, Guan Shan. I’d distract you too much and you’d threaten to cut my balls off more than you already do.’

Maybe it’s true—no, Guan Shan knows it’s true; He Tian does what he does because it’s what he was made to do. It’s how he was shaped from childhood, cultivated like a lab-grown diamond, sharp and beautiful and genetically ordained. He’s not going to put on a suit and tie and try his hand at selling cookery books—he isn’t built for it. But the rejection still snubs. 

‘So it’s gonna be like this?’ Guan Shan asks. ‘I get you for a week and they get you for three? Four? You were gone six months one time.’

He Tian hums. ‘According to your timeline, we weren’t together then.’

Guan Shan bites his cheek. ‘Fine,’ he says sourly. ‘Forget I fuckin’ said anythin’.’ 

He Tian sighs. The playful air is gone, and Guan Shan knows he’s ruined it. He Tian will be leaving in the morning, and Guan Shan could spend a fortnight hating himself for his quick temper and his brash tongue. His teachers used to wonder the same thing: _Couldn’t he just play nice?_

‘Guan Shan,’ He Tian says. He reaches a hand out, fingers tracing the curving shell of Guan Shan’s ear, nails grazing at the spot behind his ear where his hairline curves, the skin feather-soft. It makes Guan Shan shiver, eyes closing of their own traitorous accord. ‘You know what my work’s like. You’ve always known. I think we’d hate each other if we had a normal life.’

‘A normal life?’ Guan Shan remarks, eyes flashing open. ‘What, like gettin’ to see each other when we wake up in the mornin’ and go to bed? You’d hate it?’

He Tian pauses. He almost looks concerned. ‘Is that what you want? I always thought…’

Guan Shan knows what he thought. Up until this morning, he’d thought it too. He feels caught out, as if he’d hidden parts of himself beneath layers and He Tian has finally started to pick at the edges. 

‘Forget I said anythin’,’ he says again.

He Tian’s eyes have clouded over, his face a tight mask of concern. _Don’t push me out,_ he’s saying. _Don’t go back to that again. Don’t shoulder everything alone._

‘Okay,’ he says, and pulls away. ‘I’ll get my things.’

***

The day passes: Guan Shan retreats to his office when they get back to his place, a second bedroom he’d converted not long after his first book sold, an indication of his success and a small, official marker of having ‘made it’, whatever that meant. 

He Tian packs his bags, pores over his laptop in the kitchen, going through emails and encrypted documentation that he’ll need memorised by the morning. He has a 6am flight, a car arranged to pick him up before the grey haze of dawn will even start to smother the night sky, his bag set by the front door with an envelope laid gently on top: keys, cash, a hand-written address, a copy of his passport and ID. 

Guan Shan doesn’t know whose name will be next to the photo—will it be He Tian’s, his real date and place of birth? Or will he have the persona of a stranger, new mannerisms and a new accent by the time the plane lands in Chengdu, a new life—one where Guan Shan doesn’t exist.

They eat leftovers from the fridge for dinner—mapo tofu, rice, and a side of garlicky greens. Guan Shan sits at his desk, and places He Tian’s bowl beside his laptop in the kitchen. At eight o’clock, before the sun has even set, Guan Shan hears He Tian move to the bedroom, the sound of running water, an electric toothbrush, drawers open and closing.

Eventually, Guan Shan hears the sound he knew was coming: a soft knock at the door. 

‘You can’t stay angry at me for long, Guan Shan,’ he hears. ‘Come to bed, sweetheart. We’re not going to waste tonight.’

Guan Shan’s hands rest either side of his keyboard, and he stares at his monitor, just catching the reflection of his own eyes staring back, sullen and defeated. 

‘I’m not angry at you.’

‘Sure about that?’ He Tian asks him, the words muffled through the door. ‘You haven’t looked at me since we left my apartment.’

Guan Shan gets up, opens the door. He Tian, leaning against the wall, arms folded, looks at him expectantly. 

‘Why d’you even have that place?’ Guan Shan asks, frustration thickening his voice. ‘If all your stuff is here—the shit you need—why even have that place?’

He Tian says, ‘Would it make you happy if I sold it?’

‘I asked the first fuckin’ question. Would it make _you_ happy?’

He Tian straightens, arms dropping to his sides. ‘It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t want you to feel like you don’t have your own space. I know you’re—’ He pauses, choosing his words carefully. _‘—particular_ like that.’

‘I don’t give a shit about my own space.’

‘Fine,’ says He Tian. ‘I’ll sell it.’

‘Fine.’

‘Done.’

They look at each other, until eventually He Tian wets his lips, hesitating. ‘Did you just ask me to move in with you?’

Guan Shan only hears a challenge, jerks his chin in response. He can’t back down now; what else is there left to do in this storm but ride its waves? ‘So what if I did?’

He Tian takes a deep breath. ‘Well, this… It just feels like the most aggressive next step I’ve ever taken.’ He drags a hand over his neck, contemplative. ‘Hard to tell whether you really want me here or whether my shit will be in black bags on the street when I get back from Chengdu.’

It comes out too rough, like an accusation: _‘I want you here.’_

The anger in it makes He Tian laugh. ‘And _now_ I don’t know whether you want to fight me or fuck me.’

‘What d’you wanna hear?’ Guan Shan counters. ‘You want both?’

He Tian’s eyes are bright with speculation, but he needs only an invitation for it to turn into this. He reaches out, loops his fingers around Guan Shan’s wrist. His fingertips rest on the underside of it, touching tenderly against his pulse, and Guan Shan wonders if he can feel how it hammers, frantic as a caged bird, how it beats differently now, marching to some new music he didn’t know his body could play. 

‘Come here,’ He Tian murmurs. ‘So fucking unpredictable lately. Let me fuck you before you change your mind.’

A kiss or three, and everything is absolved. Guan Shan wants to hit him—wants to run before something (a gesture, a sound) exposes him, forces him to lie through his teeth. He could tell He Tian, could confess the truth of it while He Tian kisses the nape of his neck, skin beating with sweat, tongue swiping at the salt, or he could force himself into quietness and harbor his love like a secret. Would it be so bad? Would it hurt He Tian to know? He Tian always knows when something’s wrong—tugging the truth from him with an artful touch, a careful arrangement of words that press Guan Shan right where they’re meant to.

 _Not tonight,_ Guan Shan thinks, a litany in his head as they stumble into the bedroom, feet led by their mouths, clothing left in piles on the floor, kicked away. _Let him go to Chengdu without this._

No one needs the weight of an _I love you_ hanging on them like a too-heavy coat at the end of winter, when the days are warmer and the fabric ends up fastened around a waist, thrown over a shoulder, or discarded entirely. 

Who, Guan Shan wonders, is he saving from his silence—He Tian or himself?

***

Sex, he realises, is different now.

He touches with an open heart, lets himself be touched with the desperate longing of someone who hopes they are being felt the same, that this moment is shared, felt on the same plane—electricity shivering on his skin, breath caught breathlessly.

He touches a hand to his cheek afterwards. It feels damp, a little cold, eyelashes weighted. Did He Tian notice? 

Guan Shan looks over his shoulder. He Tian’s already asleep, able to lull himself into nothingness like flicking a switch, sex and orgasm like popping a trazadone or two and waking in the morning, aching and blissed, with a smile on his lips. His arm, heavy, fits into the slightest dip of Guan Shan’s waist, pulls him into tight closeness, a loosely clenched fist pressing against Guan Shan’s lungs.

Guan Shan breathes out slowly, turns back over. If he’s not careful, he’ll spend the whole night sleepless and watchful, tracing He Tian’s unguarded features with his eyes, committing the sight of him to memory. Instead, he’ll shut his eyes tight, secure in the bitter knowledge that ignorance is bliss.

***

He’s up before He Tian the next morning, showered and dressed, breakfast set out on the dining table, spotlights switched on beneath the cupboards—nothing too startling. He Tian blinks sleepily as he emerges from the bedroom, showered, cleanly shaven, dressed all in black, scratching at the dark patch of hair on his abdomen as he stretches, and he takes the mug of coffee that Guan Shan presses into his hands with a slow blink of pleasure.

‘Oh,’ he says. 

‘Thought you’d need it.’

He Tian blows on the coffee, still hot. He puts a hand out, tries to grab at Guan Shan as he passes, but Guan Shan evades him and his reach falls short. Grumbling, He Tian says, ‘I needed you next to me when I woke up—that’s what I needed. What’s all this for?’

Guan Shan shrugs, and he kicks a chair out for He Tian to set himself down on. ‘Couldn’t sleep,’ he says. ‘I wanted to see you before you left.’

He Tian’s eyes crinkle at the corners, mouth softening. ‘You’re cute when you’re surly,’ he says.

Guan Shan doesn’t reply. He pours tea, sets a plate of scallion pancakes down in front him, a bowl of hot congee, small dishes of leftover greens and meat. He Tian studies it all dutifully. 

‘The car will be here soon,’ he starts, a reluctant weight hanging on the end of the words.

Guan Shan hesitates as he sits himself down on the opposite chair. ‘You don’t have to eat—’

‘The day I refuse your cooking will be my last fucking meal,’ He Tian cuts in, bringing a spoonful of congee to his mouth. He eats indelicately, not without eagerness, and Guan Shan watches him out the corner of his eye with satisfaction.

‘You gonna have comms this time?’ he asks, when the dishes are half-empty, and He Tian’s mouth has slowed to a grazing chew. Outside, the sky has just started to lighten, birdsong flitting in through the open window. He waits for the buzzer to sound for the apartment, forces himself to relax the stiff posture he didn’t know he’d been holding. 

‘I can’t promise it,’ He Tian replies. ‘Based on the brief and location, I wouldn’t think so.’

Guan Shan nods, looks down. He remembers months of radio silence, wondering if He Tian ever talked about him, if anyone would think to let him know that something had happened. Was his name on the emergency contact information? Did He Cheng know the two of them were close enough that he’d think to call, let Guan Shan know of his brother’s passing while He Tian had chased one more thrill?

‘But I’ll write to you if I can,’ He Tian says. ‘They’ll monitor the letters, but they usually let those through.’

‘Monitor?’

He Tian points a chopstick at him. ‘No smut, okay? And no dirty pictures.’

Guan Shan scoffs, leans back in his chair. ‘You’d be fuckin’ lucky.’

‘You’ll have to save them for when I’m back.’

‘Why fuckin’ bother? You’ll have the real thing when you’re home.’

He Tian goes still, struck dumb. Guan Shan isn’t sure what does it—the carnal offering, perhaps? Sex always has a delibitating affect on He Tian, the thought of Guan Shan undressed and _available_ to him. No longer just a joke, something taunted and out of reach, carrot on a stick—hands on Guan Shan’s skin like touching, for the first time every time, a piece of art. 

Or maybe it’s _home_. 

‘I like the thought of that,’ He Tian says. His eyes have gone dark, hungry. 

Guan Shan shifts. ‘Yeah, well. Keep your thoughts to yourself.’

A slow nod. ‘They’ll be my closest companion these next few weeks.’

Something in Guan Shan stirs, a new awakening, and he stifles it, clearing his throat. ‘You finished?’

He Tian frowns. ‘You’re not eating?’

‘Too early for me,’ Guan Shan admits, a half-truth. He’s worried he’ll throw it all over He Tian’s shoes as they say goodbye on the threshold of his apartment— _their_ apartment. The new revelation makes him dizzy. Suddenly, He Tian’s leaving seems a little less harrowing; his return to this place will be final, and it will be theirs.

As if hearing the route of his thoughts, the buzzer sounds, and the two of them exchange a look. He Tian swallows the last of his coffee, a cup of tea gone lukewarm, and they move towards the door, dishes left on the table. 

He Tian shoulders his bag, and says, smirking, ‘Don’t miss me too much.’

 _Don’t tempt me._ ‘Too busy enjoyin’ the peace and quiet to miss you,’ Guan Shan says instead, cooly. 

He Tian chuckles, and it’s rewarding: he’s sought out the lie. He knows what Guan Shan isn’t saying, but not all of it. It hides inside of Guan Shan like ink on his tongue: say too much, and He Tian will catch a glimpse of it, the purple stain on his words. Better to stay silent, bite down until blood fills his throat. 

At the door, He Tian presses a kiss to his forehead, his eyelids, and another, trembling, to his lips. They say nothing, and Guan Shan watches him walk to the elevator, a dark shadow moving through the corridor, still dimly lit.

‘He Tian,’ he calls out, embarrassed by the thickness of his voice. 

Standing in the elevator, He Tian’s gaze flicks upwards. He already has a packet of cigarettes in his hand, ready to light the moment he’s outside. His eyes are dark pockets, and Guan Shan can’t tell where his irises begin. This is a safe distance; Guan Shan’s heart hammers in his chest. The doors are starting to slide shut. 

No time left.

Guan Shan says, _‘I love you.’_

The world seems to inhale for a moment, holding its breath, hinged on the look they’re harbouring between them, but nothing changes. Time, eventually, ticks on. 

He Tian mouth parts slightly, and he steps forward—and the doors shut. Guan Shan watches the number on the elevator go down, stopping once, then hitting the ground. A minute passes, and it doesn’t come back up. 

Eventually, Guan Shan steps back, shuts the door, and lets himself sink, slowly, to the floor.

***

A week passes. He remembers most things (shower, tea, work, sending a text to his mother) and forgets others (groceries, eating, not working, sleeping for more than five hours). Jian Yi visits him, brings a pot of stew for him to heat in the microwave for a few days, and forces him to shut off his computer for an hour. _Come on—you can spare me a paltry hour, can’t you?_

‘How does a chef forget to cook?’ Jian Yi demands, peering into shelves scarce of food, sterile light washing his already pale face to something ghostly, some saint on a stained glass window. ‘How do you have an empty fridge?’

Guan Shan shrugs. ‘Not cookin’ anymore.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The development shit is done,’ Guan Shan says. ‘It’s all the editing now.’

Jian Yi sighs, closes the door, and sets two bottles of beer down on the counter. ‘Shouldn’t you have, like—’ He waves a hand. ‘An _editor_ for that?’

Guan Shan says, ‘I’m particular.’

Jian Yi shoots him a disagreeable look while he searches for a bottle opener; he’s still in the early stages of criticising Guan Shan for his work ethic, where He Tian has abandoned it completely. There will be no arguing or persuading, no changing of Guan Shan’s methods—not unless he decides to do it of his own accord.

_You’re a fucking rock, Mo Guan Shan. You don’t move for anyone._

Opener retrieved, the bottle caps clatter onto the marble counter, and Guan Shan swallows a mouthful of beer after a clink of good health. ‘Thanks for the stew,’ he says. ‘I know why you’re here, but you can fuck off now.’

A flash of indignation turns to pity, and Jian Yi looks as if he might reach out across the island counter in the kitchen and take Guan Shan’s hand. Looks, after a second, like he’s thought better of it.

‘Have you talked to him?’ Jian Yi asks, eyeing him while he takes a swig and smacks his lips together. ‘About quitting?’

‘He won’t.’

‘Not even for you?’

‘What difference would it make? Whether it’s for me or him. He’ll do what he fuckin’ wants.’

Jian Yi sighs, points a finger at him, wiggling it back and forth in accusation like a caterpillar. ‘Too stubborn. That’s the tragedy of your whole relationship, the both of you. Too fucking stubborn. I thought you passed the non-communicative stages.’ Guan Shan lifts an eyebrow, and Jian Yi’s grin is sheepish. ‘I’ve been reading Xixi’s therapy textbooks. It’s good shit.’

‘Good shit for a guy who’s not a fuckin’ therapist,’ Guan Shan replies, warning. His beer is nearly empty, and he grabs two more bottles from the fridge. ‘We don’t need some bullshit couples therapy.’

‘Maybe not,’ Jian Yi agrees. He leans forward eagerly, wearing the plain, clerical look of an optimist. ‘You just need to _be_ together.’

Guan Shan pulls a face, hands him another beer. ‘Like it’s easy.’

Jian Yi sighs. ‘My dear Redhead.’ A flat look. He takes the bottle. ‘It shouldn’t be hard.’

***

Another week, or maybe two. Time flows strangely in relative isolation, days of the week marked by video calls with his publicist and Jian Yi’s spontaneous visits, laden with food and beer to restock his fridge, as if in compensation for his presence. The plane to Chengdu is half-empty, sunset streaking pinkish through the porthole. Guan Shan has the entire row to himself; he’s had three glasses of wine in an overpriced Departures restaurant, and he’s half-asleep by the time the plane tilts backwards for take off. 

There have been no emails or texts—there have been no letters. Chengdu is smaller than Beijing, but it’ll be no easier for Guan Shan to find him in the apartments nestled between brewhouses and cafés, glass financial buildings struck up around the Anshun bridge, orange lighting turning it molten at night.

The journey is nonsensical—he knows it, on a conscious level. Guan Shan won’t find him, wasting his time in a serviced apartment as if he’ll bump into He Tian on the street or sidle up next to him at a local bar, some sort of magnetised fate—and yet it resonates in him, a kind of knowledge that feels like this is the only thing he’s ever known. He doubts himself not for a second, passes through customs with a tired satedness, sleepy but sure that, for once, he’s exactly where he needs to be.

He catches a taxi to the apartment he’d rented online, a clean space furnished in neutrals almost entirely from an IKEA catalogue and speckled with Alibaba trinkets. The kitchen is well-stocked, the desk and chair nestled in an alcove in the hallway that will be comfortable enough for a while for him to work, and Guan Shan eyes the complimentary bottle of _baijiu_ , cheap and native to the 7-Eleven around the corner.

Tomorrow, it will be their anniversary. He suspects he’ll wake up late, and alone, with sour breath and a headache that pins him between the eyes. The sheets will be cold, and he’ll sit curled in the desk chair before his laptop with poor posture until noon or until his stomach claws at him to eat something—anything. 

Guan Shan looks around him. It’s pitch black outside, the spring air still cold and biting at his heels, but after a minute he grabs his keys and shuts the door behind him. He remembers walking the streets at home as a kid, half-hoping he’d find trouble; half-hoping it would find him. Tonight, he’s content with the solitude, the silence that seems to wrap around his head like a bubble or a thick scarf in winter. 

The streets aren’t quiet; there are tourists and night-shift workers and businessmen returning from the local brewhouses. Sirens blare on their way to the nearby hospital, its tower lights spilling over the streets below in blue and red; karaoke music thrums with bass and tinny techno from a basement window. Guan Shan notices little of it, and hears less. 

He doesn’t know how long he walks, only that the streets are emptier now and he doesn’t recognise any part of his surroundings. He knows that his skin has grown warm and his jacket is tied around his waist and somehow it’s a little difficult to breathe because He Tian didn’t say it back.

He’s here, in a strange city, halfway across China to find a man he doesn’t know how to find to hear words he doesn’t know he’ll hear and—

‘Are you going to walk all night?’

Guan Shan stops. His feet have gone numb, he realises, but the rest of him burns like He Tian’s poured over gasoline and lit a match. 

‘You’re here,’ he says, choked. ‘How long…’

‘A while,’ He Tian says, chuckling, stepping out from beneath the awning of a chain bakery, now closed for the night. Maybe it’s the light, all neons and harsh shadows, but he looks tired. Has he lost weight? ‘Like a fucking creep. I was sure you’d seen me once or twice.’

Guan Shan’s tongue moves slowly in his mouth. There’s a distance of a few feet between them, a barrier he can’t surpass. ‘I don’t know what the fuck I’m doin’ here. I didn’t think—didn’t know where you’d be or—how did you—’

‘Jian Yi,’ He Tian says simply, cutting him off.

Guan Shan’s grateful for the interruption, his head like cotton wool. Jian Yi. Of course, Jian Yi. If anyone would know, it would be him—and Guan Shan doesn’t resent him for it. Doesn’t resent Jian Yi’s connections, or the knowledge his family holds. He doesn’t want it.

‘Are you workin’?’ Guan Shan asks. ‘Are you done?’

‘I’m done.’

Guan Shan looks at him, uncertain. There’s something about the finality of it… He doesn’t mean it like that, does he? He Tian’s fucking with him. Building him up for false hope—no, He Tian wouldn’t do that. It’s just his own fucking mind, wanting to hear what it wants to.

‘I’m done for good,’ says He Tian. ‘I quit. Last job.’

‘Bullshit,’ Guan Shan blurts. 

He Tian’s lips twitch. ‘I’m serious. I quit. You were right.’

‘About what?’

He Tian exhales, long and slow. ‘Me and you. Being together everyday. I had three weeks of hearing you say you—’ He swallows. ‘—what you said on repeat—and I thought about not hearing it again.’

‘I’ve been sayin’ it for years and I didn’t know it.’

He Tian stares at him, and Guan Shan knows what he’s thinking: where has this truth come from, striking him like bluntforce trauma and no apology? Where there were fists and sharp tongues—there’s softness now like shoving thorn roses against his throat and telling him to breathe in—deep and slow.

‘Do you still want to go Jiuzhaigou?’ He Tian says. ‘I booked the table, like I promised. There’s a flight in…’ He Tian glances at his watch. ‘Five hours, give or take. We’d be there in an hour and we could be hiking by noon.’

‘You look like you’d drop dead if you started on a mountain,’ Guan Shan remarks. It takes until now to notice how He Tian is favouring his right side, shifting his weight too often, mouth tight at the corners with each sway. He remembers how much he hates this: He Tian never coming back to him whole, a piece or two always missing. ‘I’m not fuckin’ carryin’ you back down.’

He Tian huffs his dry, fond laughter, fringed with tiredness. ‘Then what do you want? I don’t want to miss our anniversary.’

 _Our anniversary._ Guan Shan’s heart, it feels, is fracturing.

‘I’ve rented a place for a week,’ he says, a little croakily. ‘I can see the People’s Park from the window and Tianfu Square. It’s not a waterfall, but—it’s not a bad view. It could do, if you’ll have it.’

‘What about the book?’ He Tian says testily. ‘Your deadline—’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Guan Shan shoves his hands in his pockets. ‘You were right. Feng Liu can wait a couple days.’

‘You were right,’ He Tian murmurs. ‘You were right….’ He rocks back on his heels. ‘Listen to us,’ he muses, wincing. ‘Giving each other such high praise for once.’

‘Don’t get used to it.’

He Tian shakes his head, moves forward. He closes the space between them, and up close Guan Shan can see the shadows under his eyes—no trick of the light but bruising, purplish and deep. An image flashes: the both of them sleeping for days, not moving from the bed but to eat and piss and offer food and water to one another’s mouths, to offer skin and lips and words that reach no higher sound than a scant whisper. A week of worship, of rest, of indeterminable closeness that signals the start of no end, marked with sleep lines.

Gladly, Guan Shan will kiss the bruises away, if He Tian will let him.

‘Mo Guan Shan,’ He Tian murmurs. There’s no touching, just the sensation of each other’s breath on their skin, of watching street lights flicker in their irises; He Tian’s have turned charcoal dark, reflecting light like the sheen of spilled oil. ‘I know what you want to hear. I know everything I’m saying isn’t what you’ve been wanting me to say.’

Guan Shan jolts as if burnt, fingers caught on a hot stove. ‘I never asked you to say it back.’

Softly, ‘No one says it without hoping for an answer.’

It feels like a knife blade; it feels like shame. Is this He Tian—three weeks later, standing before him in some foreign city, close enough to touch and withholding from the opportunity—letting him down _gently?_ Guan Shan starts to move away—he needs his barriers back. He needs his walls built up again, closed off against the hurt. He needs to get away from the perpetual fuck up of himself, but that’s impossible without—

‘I never thought you wanted to hear it,’ He Tian continues. ‘I thought you’d run if I said it—a nail in the fucking coffin. You shocked the fuck out of me.’

‘I didn’t know it.’

The things he didn’t know: how to say it, how to feel it, how to not let it break open like a half-healed wound still daring to split under a little pressure.

He Tian’s eyes go soft. ‘I’m beginning to see that.’

Guan Shan looks at him, and his words are still aching. _No one says it without hoping for an answer._ An answer. Where is it? Where is the rejection to Guan Shan’s unasked question? They should’ve carried on, business as usual: fucking and fighting and kissing and existing as lovers with no strings attached. To continue like that—it would have been _easy._ It would’ve hurt.

‘The last time I said it to someone,’ He Tian says carefully, ‘they died not long after. I’m not—I can’t take that risk again.’

Guan Shan makes himself shrug, tries to stop his eyes from stinging. He gets it. Don’t say it; don’t get hurt. ‘Self-preservation.’

‘Not quite. I don’t give a fuck if I hurt. I couldn’t watch it happen to you.’

‘Huh?’ Guan Shan eyes roam He Tian’s face, narrowed. ‘You think you killed them? By sayin’ it?’

He Tian scratches the back of his neck. His smile is awkward, self-deprecating, as if finally the idiocy of it has been said aloud and it doesn’t sound quite like it should. ‘Maybe I didn’t. But a superstition is hard to shrug off when you’ve kept it with you since you were a kid. I’m not taking the risk.’

Guan Shan knows what that feels like. If not superstition, then guilt. He’s learnt how easy it is to fabricate self-blame, to find a villain in himself at every turn. _It’s not your fault,_ He Tian had said to him once, an easy comfort for others, too difficult to swallow himself. 

‘Fine,’ Guan Shan says. He waves a hand. ‘Enjoy your guilt.’

He Tian sighs. He reaches out a hand, drops it. ‘Is it enough for me to feel it?’ he asks tiredly. ‘Is it enough for you not to hear it, and for me to want to say it? I want to be with you forever and I fucking _hurt_ with wanting to say it, Ah-Shan, but—’

‘Okay.’

An uncertain look. ‘Okay?’

 _Ah-Shan. Say it again._ Guan Shan nods slowly. ‘If you _wanna_ say it… And you’re gonna stick around… Guess that’s enough.’

‘Forever?’

‘I dunno,’ Guan Shan says honestly. He cups He Tian’s face with his hand, curves the other around his wrist. Beneath his thumb, he can feel how He Tian’s lower lip is full with swelling; he can feel the smooth, scale-like skin of a gouge not long healed on the ridge of his cheekbone. He can feel He Tian’s pulse, racing, beneath the sharp precipice of his jaw line. ‘But for now—yeah. I don’t need anythin’ else.’


	2. holocene

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This sequel was requested by Emma ([@plumb19](http://plumb19.tumblr.com)) - thank you so much for letting me explore this story further and supporting me, especially during these difficult times. If you would like to have a fic written for you, please visit my [Tumblr](http://agapaic.tumblr.com) to see how!

‘Does your family own a house in every fuckin’ city?’

He Tian pauses. ‘Not… _every_ city.’

‘Right,’ Guan Shan replies. ‘Sorry for assumin’.’ 

His voice has gone breathy, a mild hysteria that washes in with the truth that He Tian has had things in his life that Guan Shan wasn’t even blessed to have in nightmares. There’s a guard on watch, bundled up in a goose-down parka, fur-lined hood drawn up against the cold, and she salutes them from her small cabin. Smoke drifts through a chimney, and Guan Shan can see the orange flicker of a fire like wiggling fingertips from inside.

Guan Shan would’ve been content with that; a ten-by-ten cabin with a log burner and not enough space for the two of them to coexist without knocking elbows and catching their hip bones on fold-away tables. Frankly, he would’ve been content with a tent and He Tian’s too-hot skin sliding against his own in sleep, too tired to move, bearing it silently while he listens to He Tian’s breathing, turning laboured while he dreams.

Instead, there’s this. 

He imagines family hiking trips to Jiuzhaigou, the brothers and their parents, family friends and a host of staff: cooks and cleaners and hunting specialists and, probably, the park manager over for dinner and a bottle of Moutai from the 1940’s. The cabin is not quaint, or cosy, or bucolic in its settlement against the Sichuan mountainside; like most things the He’s own and are, the place is intimidating by default of sheer fucking size. 

He Tian carries their bags inside, kicking open the front door with a steel-capped hiking boot, and he inhales deeply as he walks inside. Guan Shan follows suit, glancing about furtively, and the scent hits him: log fires turned to ash, sanded floorboards, still redolent of turpentine and varnish, the husky dampness of wet stone now drying out in the sun. Guan Shan can see his own breath in front of him. 

He Tian drops the bags in the foyer, at the foot of an oak staircase that winds upwards around the mezzanine, and evaluates his surroundings with a judicial gaze. Guan Shan watches him, wonders what old memories are starting to piece themselves back together around him, wonders whether they’re good or bad. Guan Shan suspects, knowing him intimately—knowing his family superficially and not wanting to know more—that they’re probably the latter.

‘It’s fuckin’ cold,’ Guan Shan says, breaking the studious silence. He has a feeling He Tian could stand there all day. ‘Does this place have heating?’

He Tian glances back at him, and his face breaks into a smile. ‘Just the fires,’ he says. ‘Me and Cheng—we spent a winter here cutting wood when we were younger. I must’ve been twelve or thirteen. I had blisters like craters on my hands from sawing and Cheng pulled his shoulder from the axe. It felt like we’d cut down a whole fucking forest, I swear.’

Guan Shan raises his eyebrows. ‘He Tian the lumberjack?’

He Tian grins back at him. ‘Are you flirting with me, Mo Guan Shan?’

‘You’d look ugly in plaid,’ Guan Shan replies gruffly, rolling his eyes.

‘No, I wouldn’t.’

Guan Shan bites his tongue. Fuck him, he wouldn’t, and He Tian’s easy smile, dimpled with smugness, says he knows it. 

He Tian gives him a tour: the bedrooms, his father’s study, the high-ceilinged living room with cherry-red wooden beams from who-knows-when and a fireplace the size of a small car sheltered behind an iron grate which, He Tian tells him, was welded in the 1800’s. He’s proud of these pockets of heritage—of privilege—where he’s proud of nothing else that comes with the territory of being a He. Guan Shan doesn’t know anyone else with quite as much disdain for their family, and he despises He Tian for it as much as he respects him. What he wouldn’t give to have anything he wanted—anything he needed—and how happy he is that he never had so little love.

_Is it enough for you not to hear it, and for me to want to say it?_

How many times as a kid had He Tian foregone hearing it?

Guan Shan follows him back downstairs to the kitchen, wood creaking perpetually underfoot, a hollow sound traipsing beneath their footsteps, and he eyes the space hungrily: two stoves, a freezer filled with frozen meals already prepared by a family chef, another freezer with haunches of deer and beef tripe and pheasant and duck breast, a well-stocked pantry of grain and dried spices and meats and a whole wall of pickled vegetables and jarred sauces. A chain of dried Sichuan chillies hanging on one wall knocks him back when the door opens, the spice tickling the back of his throat, and his mouth waters at the baskets of garlic bulbs and cloves and star anise.

‘We’re here to hike,’ He Tian reminds him in the doorway of the pantry, ‘not to cook.’

Guan Shan turns to him guiltily. ‘Can we come back?’ 

‘Sure,’ says He Tian. ‘Whenever you want.’

It’s an easy promise to make these days, filling Guan Shan with a delight that springs forth with dangerous ease. In Chengdu, He Tian had walked out on a job he hadn’t had much right to leave. What followed was a call from his brother and orders for deployment for three months before his contract was officially ‘done’. Even He Cheng, He Tian had said, couldn’t pull that responsibility from him; it was his to carry out, his to bear, and his to see to its end. 

He Cheng had appeared at Guan Shan’s rental in Chengdu wearing an expression on his face that He Tian had taken one look at and told Guan Shan to go buy drinks. Guan Shan took a walk around the block and returned, empty-handed; he stood outside the front door while he heard He Cheng’s bass tones touch on words like _responsibility_ and _contacts_ and _duty_ ; and he heard, after, the sound of fists smacking against flesh and a scuffle that hadn’t lasted long. It was only their second fight, He Tian told him after, while Guan Shan pressed a cloth filled with ice against his cheek, and he’d forgotten with a wry, swollen grin, that Cheng used to box in high school.

Three months had passed; He Tian fulfilled the terms of his contract, and Guan Shan published his cookbook, adhering to his publicist’s rules for promoting and reaping its rewards, and they had, then, a discomforting amount of freedom to spend with nothing and no one but each other—had they ever had so little to answer to? 

The trip to Jiuzhaigou was delayed, three-months in the making, and Guan Shan knows that He Tian is right: there’ll be other times for cooking and sifting through the cabin’s cupboards and cellars. For now, the air is growing cool outside, and He Tian is impatient to tie the laces on his hiking boots, his gloves tucked in the waistband of his jeans.

They each take a bag, two flasks of soup and hot water, a pack of dried fruit and jerky and some peanut bars. Two green apples, shone to a gleam against He Tian's shirt, that will be bruised in their bags by the time either wants to eat them. He Tian insists on a container of hard boiled eggs, and Guan Shan asks how long he plans to walk. 

‘Until I can’t feel my feet,’ He Tian says cheerily as they leave the cabin behind them. ‘I’ll need a massage later—long and deep.’

‘Dunno what you’re lookin’ at me for,’ Guan Shan says. ‘I’m not goin’ near your fuckin’ feet.’ He jerks a thumb behind them. ‘Don’t you have an on-call masseuse?’

He Tian grips Guan Shan around the shoulders with one arm, squeezes tight as they amble down the winding driveway that leads up to the house. ‘No need when I have a doting companion.’

Guan Shan snorts, shrugs him off. ‘Does giving you a massage come with the territory?’

‘I’ll repay the favour,’ He Tian replies smoothly. ‘I took a course once.’

‘Jack of all trades?’

‘Master of all.’

Guan Shan shakes his head, lets He Tian steal a kiss from him, a small act of thievery for which Guan Shan barely begrudges him. They walk another ten minutes until they approach the bottom of the driveway and come to a crossroads, publicly sign-posted. That morning, He Tian had mapped out a circular route he’d taken as a kid, and he observes his surroundings now with a pleased familiarity, as if finally seeing what he hadn’t been able to find in the cabin. 

‘We’ll hit the boardwalk in half an hour,’ He Tian tells him confidently, boots kicking up gravel and dirt as they follow a steep path down, Guan Shan’s knees taking his weight, his shins pressing up against the front of his new hiking boots that rub only slightly on the ankles. ‘It’ll take us along the Zechawa River, and we’ll be at the waterfall in a couple of hours.’

‘You’ve got a lot of power right now,’ Guan Shan tells him. ‘You could take me fuckin’ anywhere and I’d have to follow.’ He doesn’t say, _I’d follow you anyway._

‘I only know this route,’ He Tian says, grinning at Guan Shan’s false helplessness. After a moment, the smile fades, turns into something twisted like vines, ropey and warped in the search for sunlight. ‘My father used to make us run it in winter before the sun came up. Sometimes we’d go twice. I’d know it with my eyes shut.’

Guan Shan considers him. ‘Was that before or after the lumberjack show?’

He Tian laughs, and Guan Shan looks away, pleased. It’s taken him skill and a few years of practice to know how and when to tug the sound from him, like repotting a plant and taking care with its roots. 

‘Both,’ He Tian says. ‘I thought my dick would fall off it was so fucking cold. We didn’t have hot water for a few years and had to wait for a maid to melt snow in front of the fire before we could take a bath.’

‘Couldn’t handle it?’ Guan Shan asks, jeering slightly. ‘Aren’t you all cold-blooded masochists?’

He Tian smirks. ‘You know how hot I run, sweetheart. I’ll show you later, if you’d like.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘That’s not a _no_.’

It isn’t, but Guan Shan won’t admit to it. Instead, he says, ‘You did a lot with your brother.’

‘Is that a question?’ He Tian asks mildly. There’s no animosity in it, but Guan Shan knows He Tian would rather break a bone than talk too much about the _how’s_ and _why’s_ of his family dynamic. He knows only, with any certainty, the _what’s._

Guan Shan hesitates. ‘Did you always hate him?’

He Tian squints into the distance, and Guan Shan can see what he’d been referring to: a low, neatly cultivated wooden boardwalk that hugs the riverside. Fallen trees are just visible above the waterline, the water clear, sunlight striking the surface and dragging up thin plumes of mist into the air. _Don’t be disappointed if the waterfall’s frozen over,_ He Tian had told him a week before. _It’s still beautiful._

‘Not always,’ He Tian says. ‘I idolised the bastard. He’s—he _was_ everything I wanted to be. But I was young, saw things and didn’t see others.’

‘D’you see things different now?’

He Tian doesn’t answer for a while, eyes on the riverbank, the alpine landscape stretching out before them. In the distance, Guan Shan can make out the coloured jackets of other walkers heading further into the valley towards the waterfalls, the figures small specks against the neat planks of the boardwalk. Between the sound of dirt crunching between their feet, patches of grass and dense earth breaking apart from an overnight frost, Guan Shan can hear the quiet trickle of water hitting a surface. 

‘Different,’ He Tian murmurs eventually, scratching the back of his neck. ‘I suppose. I don’t blame him for the things I used to, but maybe that’s because I stopped being angry.’

‘About?’

He Tian smiles. ‘Things that don’t matter anymore. Not in the grand scheme of things. Like you, and me. And us.’ He Tian clears his throat. ‘Not to mention that my hatred for him was always a sort of… placeholder for someone else. Cheng did his best, even if his best fucking sucked.’

Guan Shan considers him, listening to him talk about hatred and placeholders. It’s self-aware in a way Guan Shan didn’t quite think He Tian was capable of. _Someone else,_ he says, reluctant even now to give his father any kind of label, to give him more credit than he already fails to deserve. Guan Shan says, ‘You sound like you’ve been to counsellin’ or some shit. You been seein’ Zhan Zhengxi for sessions?’

‘Ah,’ says He Tian, amused, and then he shrugs. ‘I’ve had a lot of time for introspection. For looking at where my—my bitterness comes from, if that’s even the word. I don’t doubt Zhengxi would’ve helped me get there a lot fucking faster than it’s taken me to get there myself.’ 

‘The fucker was always too quiet,’ Guan Shan remarks, shoving his hands in his pockets as the terrain evens out, his footing surer. ‘Like he was just… watchin’ everyone do shit and takin’ notes.’

He Tian’s still laughing at the comment when they hit the boardwalk, boots hitting the wood with a hollow thud that seems to ricochet against the surface of the river. It’s slow moving, still enough that Guan Shan barely sees a ripple in the water. Dirt and debris and microorganisms shift beneath the current, and the roots of upturned tree trunks are exposed along the boardwalk, some half-exposed, some submerged entirely. 

They stand side-by-side for a moment when they hit the water’s edge, and Guan Shan can see their reflections, half-formed images that waver in the light, like shadows on the edge of a developed film canister. 

‘Are you cold?’

Guan Shan blinks, turns to He Tian. ‘No?’

‘You’re shivering,’ He Tian says, tugging him close. His arm wraps around Guan Shan’s shoulders with a proprietary tug; in the reflection, their shapes become one. 

‘Let’s keep walking,’ Guan Shan says, and they do. 

It takes them two hours to hit the waterfall, by which time they’ve stopped to use the toilet pits and eaten a peanut bar each and shared one of the apples, taking bites in turn and throwing the core into the half-bare treeline. Crows and rosefinches startle from the boughs, and He Tian teases, bullshiting, that he saw a Sichuan golden monkey skittering through the broadleaf forest. 

They’re not alone on the viewing deck. Small crowds of tourists emerge from the shuttle buses, and hikers come and go along the boardwalk after snapping photos and resting for water and food. The waterfall is half-frozen, stalactites jutting downwards towards the water below; overnight, it will freeze entirely, a solid mass of water half-suspended on its gravitational trajectory, as if any minute it might go crashing to the motionless river beneath, ice shattering and refracting and skittering wildly across the surface. 

Guan Shan corrects himself: nothing in nature happens too fast, everything in its place; the sun will rise in the morning, a pinkish glow as if an old oil lamp is held up against the ice, and the water will start to run again. 

_Disappointed,_ Guan Shan thinks, curving his hands over the wooden barrier of the viewing deck. _Could it be possible?_

‘Wait until tomorrow,’ He Tian says, a little smug. ‘When we go to the lake—you’ll never want to leave.’

‘The Five Flower Lake?’ 

He Tian nods, spreads an arm out before him, setting the scene. ‘If we have snow overnight, the trees will be covered in white like ash, and the water… it’s the clearest thing you’ll ever see. Most people think it’s better in autumn when there’s so much colour and the water’s still warm.’

Guan Shan knows what he’s talking about—he’s seen the pictures. Trees with their boughs set aflame with leaves, lurid red and yellow like the stain of turmeric on his fingertips, and the blue-green water of the lake like glass, a neatly fused gem of sapphire and emerald at the forest’s feet. Guan Shan glances around them. He Tian has a small audience, a couple of locals admiring his height, his good looks, his amateur knowledge. Guan Shan says, ‘You don’t like the autumn?’

‘It’s almost too much to take in, you know? I like the silence—how everything becomes about the water. It almost looks like it’s sleeping.’

Guan Shan’s lips twitch. ‘Maybe you could get yourself a job as a tour guide.’

‘You mean a ranger?’

‘Nah,’ Guan Shan replies, nodding his head to the small audience that has gathered, now quickly dispersing with amused embarrassment. A little bitter, jealous only that He Tian commands more than his attention alone, he adds: ‘The world’s your stage.’

‘And all the men and women are merely players.’

Guan Shan hesitates. ‘What’s that— _As You Like It?_ ’

He Tian regards him with surprise. ‘Didn’t you think were a fan.’

‘My ma liked the movie,’ Guan Shan mutters, rolling his eyes. ‘She thought she’d learn English better if it came from Shakespeare.’

He Tian chuckles. ‘Let’s go,’ he says, fondly. ‘Our table’s in twenty minutes.’

It takes them thirty to climb the steep path up towards the restaurant overlooking the waterfall, a large, open space with glass windows set along the back wall, light flooding in. If Guan Shan presses his forehead against the glass and stares down, he feels like he’s falling. 

They eat for an hour. He Tian orders a bottle of champagne, which Guan Shan tells him isn’t a good idea, and they toast to having no commitments but each other. Guan Shan’s cheeks are flushed with alcohol and too much food, and the roaring fire against the back wall of the restaurant seems to fuel the whole room. Eventually, as they swallow the dregs of their complimentary coffee, clouds begin to gather in the sky, clusters of grey that dampen the park’s display of winter colour, and He Tian pays the bill. They gather their bags, lighter now than when they’d started, refill their water, and Guan Shan finds himself leaning slightly leftward as they walk down to the foyer.

‘Two hours of walkin’ on a bottle of champagne,’ Guan Shan mutters, legs feeling slightly numb as they carry him down the main steps of the restaurant, and out onto the boardwalk. The cold is an affront to his warm, sated, well-fed state of being, and he pulls on his gloves with a harsh tug. ‘You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me.’

He Tian taps him on the hip. ‘We’ve done worse on more,’ he says. ‘We’ll be fine.’ Outside, there are fewer people gazing upon the waterfall. The lack of sun has drawn people into the restaurant for sweetmeats and hot stew, and Guan Shan suspects they’ll wait there for the last shuttle bus to take them back to the front gate of the reserve.

‘I’m gonna need a piss every five minutes.’ A worse realisation, picturing himself face-down, skin turned blue in the cold like some poor imitation of an _Ophelia_ : ‘I’m gonna fall in the fuckin’ river ‘cause of you.’

He Tian brushes off his worries with an impish look that Guan Shan has never let himself trust, and says: ‘I know a shortcut back to the cabin. One hour—max.’

Guan Shan pauses, wary. ‘There aren’t any shortcuts,’ he says. The signs throughout the park are clear and bold: _Do not diverge from the designated boardwalks of the reserve, or you may be fined._

‘Not to the public,’ He Tian says smoothly. ‘We can cut through some of the terrain. There’s no point sticking to the river.’

‘He Tian, I fuckin’ swear…’

‘Come on,’ He Tian says, tugging at a belt loop, cheeks flush and hands wandering. He runs the tip of his tongue along his teeth, catching on an incisor. ‘Trust me?’

*** 

The food soaks up less of the champagne than He Tian had expected, and as the sun starts to set through the thicket of dove trees and conifers, dipping beneath the high blanket of cloud, Guan Shan realises they’re lost. His ankle starts twinging thirty minutes in, and by the time an hour passes he’s using He Tian as a crutch. He keeps it to himself at first, lets He Tian wander, readjust, grow confident again with his surroundings, and then he tugs He Tian to a stop. 

‘I thought you knew this place.’

He Tian looks around him, a mark of confusion forming between his brows. ‘I do,’ he says, with wavering confidence. ‘Look.’ Long strides carry him to the trunk of an evergreen, and he rests his palm against the rough bark. ‘Cheng and me—we made these marks. They’re all over the place.’

Guan Shan narrows his eyes, sees a small etching that looks like a triangle, but knows it could just as easily be a natural development in the bark. He looks at He Tian.

 _I don’t even like champagne,_ he thinks.

‘When you say all over,’ Guan Shan starts slowly. ‘Like—to make a pathway, or just for the fuckin’ hell of it?’

‘I know where I’m going,’ He Tian says. He reaches out to brush a few strands of hair from Guan Shan’s forehead, his fingers hot and the nails crusted with dirt. The shortcut is an up-and-over route that smarts on Guan Shan’s knees and encourages them to use tree trunks as hoists, palms growing sticky with sap, and they both need a shower. ‘Trust me.’

‘I want to,’ Guan Shan says. Laughing helplessly, he says, ‘I really fuckin’ want to. The champagne’s gonna wear off soon, and I’m already startin’ to get cold. My stupid ankle…’ 

‘We’ll be fine,’ He Tian says. ‘You think I didn’t camp out here as a kid?’

‘Yeah, I’m sure you did. With a tent and sleepin’ bags and shit.’ Guan Shan kicks a stone with his good foot, and it skitters upwards, rebounds against a tree, and starts a slow, building trajectory back down the unmarked trail they’ve just followed. ‘We haven’t got shit out here except our backpacks and, what, a fuckin’ apple?’

‘Aw, expand your horizons, sweetheart. What happened to having each other?’

Guan Shan glares. ‘I swear to fuck, if my dick falls off—’

He Tian leers. ‘If it starts feeling tingly, you let me know. I’ll warm it right up.’

Guan Shan shoves him, and He Tian teeters backwards, losing balance and laughing, before catching his fall on the marked evergreen. It’s too cold for this, and the sun seems to be setting faster now, long shadows cast on the forest floor, warping branches and fallen trunks morphing into half-realised monsters from their darkness. 

He Tian, catching his expression, sobers. ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘We can’t be far. We’ve been walking long enough—it should just be over the ridge.’

‘You’ve been sayin’ that for half an hour,’ Guan Shan grumbles. 

‘Right,’ He Tian says. ‘So we’ll have half an hour left. I’ll give you a boost, if you want.’

‘You’re still drunk,’ Guan Shan says. ‘You’re not carryin’ me anywhere.’

‘Drunk,’ He Tian scoffs, pawing at Guan Shan’s chest, fingers pulling at the cloth of his jacket. ‘Off half a bottle of fizz. Are you saying I can’t handle my liquor?’ 

Guan Shan isn’t—he’s seen He Tian drink his way methodically through a small bottle of Jack, knows that he can swallow shots of _baijiu_ until his breath is sour and still parallel park. But today—

‘You’re buzzed,’ Guan Shan tells him, smacking his hands away. ‘We walked three hours and didn’t eat enough.’ He breathes out the air in his cheeks. ‘This is the worst fuckin’ idea…’

‘Hey,’ He Tian says. ‘Hey, sweetheart. Guan Shan. Ah-Shan. We’re _fine_ , okay? Let me just—look, I’ll go and see what’s over the edge, and you wait here. If it’s nothing, we’ll head back to the boardwalk and grab the shuttle from the restaurant. If I see the cabin, we’ll walk on. Yeah?’

Slowly, ‘You want me to wait here? In the middle of a fuckin’ forest?’

He Tian slings his backpack from his shoulder, and presses it against Guan Shan’s chest. ‘There’s a gun in there. Shoot at will.’

Guan Shan balks. ‘You fuckin’ _packed_? Are you _shittin’_ me?’

He Tian chuckles, teeters back on the balls of his feet. ‘It’s a flare gun—not a real one. If anything happens, fire it.’

‘And what about you? You’re about as useful as a pile of shit right now.’

He Tian rolls his eyes. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ he says, easily, as if he isn’t precisely the only thing Guan Shan ever _does_ worry about anymore. He points a finger at Guan Shan, starting to back away. ‘I won’t be long. Ten minutes. Don’t go anywhere, alright?’

‘Where am I gonna fuckin’ go,’ Guan Shan mutters, but He Tian is already out of earshot, the sound of his footsteps crunching against the forest floor growing softer, the back of his dark head growing smaller until Guan Shan loses sight of it among the trees, can no longer distinguish between the shivering bough of an evergreen and the slope of He Tian’s shoulders. He huffs, sets himself down on the smooth edge of a rock, kicks his feet on the severed, hollowed-out trunk of a tree that lies down before him. The walking and half a bottle of champagne have kept him warm until now, but he can feel the effects wearing off—fast. His ankle throbs, knees ache.

He notices the silence first. While walking, their breathing, their footsteps, He Tian’s quick remarks and sly comments—they’d filled an emptiness that Guan Shan only now recognises as he sits in it. He can hear the soft, cool rush of air against his eardrums, as if shuddering against a breath over his shoulder, and he stands, kicks his boot against a small rock lodged in the ground to force it away with rhythmic swings of his leg. Soon enough, his toes begin to ache, and he settles himself back down on a small patch of earth, cleared of bracken and debris. The shadows lengthen. Guan Shan squints around himself.

Was it this dark a moment ago? Has so much time passed so quickly?

‘The fuck are you?’ Guan Shan murmurs, eyes glancing around him, lancing on the space where He Tian had last stood—where he thinks He Tian stood. It was there, wasn’t it? And hasn’t it been ten minutes? A glance at his watch confirms it: thirteen minutes and forty-three seconds. Forty-four. Forty-five—

Guan Shan catches himself counting under his breath, the numbers suddenly loud, and he pulls his arms around his torso, draws He Tian’s backpack between his knees. Through the ceiling of branches and thin, stretching tree trunks looping across the skyline like a ribcage, he can see the moon beginning to brighten, the afternoon’s blanket of cloud beginning to dissipate. 

His thoughts move quickly, panic manifesting as quickly as the anger. The trees are watchful shadows; there are eyes on the back of his neck, and every sound makes the hair on his arms rise, which is to say nothing of the cold—how the condensation of his own breath catches him out, sharp turns of his neck to catch the way his own single evidence of life, of living, catches on the moonlight. He hunkers down further into his own jacket, the fabric smothering his mouth, blows out into the zippered neck until his cheeks feel the brief flutterings of warmth. 

There are leopards in the reserve—He Tian told him so earlier with vicious glee—but it’s not the fear of an animal that fills him. His skin grows cold. The forest, now, is a deep cavern of darkness. His fear, instead, is silly. Illogical. The irrational possibility that this is a place he might never leave. That He Tian, for all his promises, his show of commitment, the vow they’d made to each other as boys— _please, don’t abandon me_ —has done just that. The whole trip some elaborate ruse to place Guan Shan into unfamiliar surroundings and let him perish.

 _Fuck you,_ Guan Shan thinks, drawing the backpack closer to him, shaking. He hasn’t moved, but his breath comes faster now, hoarse in his throat; his heart a painful thud in the cavity of his chest. _Fuck you, He Tian._ He thinks, _If you’re dead at the bottom of a ditch somewhere, I’m gonna fucking kill you._

And then, just as he's beginning to accept these trees as his home, their leaves his shelter, the damp, moss-covered ground as his final resting place, he hears the steady tread of boots pressing into the earth and bracken snapping under foot. Guan Shan shoots to his feet. 

The sound comes closer, and eventually He Tian’s dark head comes into sight between a brush of pine trees. His long legs make their way through the blackened woods.

Guan Shan can’t breathe.

'I looped around!' He Tian calls out, coming closer, breathing a little heavily. ‘Couldn’t find the fucking place. There's a road a few minutes that way—I found a ranger who said she can give us a lift.’

Guan Shan stares at him, unblinking, watches as He Tian walks towards him with a loping surety, as if it’s daylight, as if he’d know how to find Guan Shan in this forest with his eyes shut, as if each square metre isn’t identical to the next. 

He Tian comes to a stop before him, swoops the backpack from Guan Shan’s feet, and appraises him, his odd stillness, his silence, eyebrows raised. The moon casts down brightly on He Tian’s face, the shadows of his lashes cast onto the ridges of his cheekbones, his skin pale and illuminated. ‘You good?’ he asks carefully.

And then Guan Shan’s breath leaves him too fast, stitches ripped out before the wound has healed, and he clutches a hand to his chest, doubles over. 

‘Oh,’ he gasps. _‘Oh, shit.’_

He Tian is there in an instant, trying to reach his eyes, crouching down. He places his hand on the small of Guan Shan’s back, rubs in small, distracting circles. ‘Hey,’ he says quietly. ‘Ah-Shan, what’s wrong?’

Guan Shan tries: ‘I thought—’ he starts, but another wave hits him, salt water filling his lungs, a mouthful of smoke and ash.

‘What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Are you okay?’

In a small, breathless voice, ‘I thought—you weren’t comin’ back.’ Another, final wave, a vacuum seal broken, air like sandpaper on his throat. It _hurts._ ‘I thought—you _asshole_ ,’ he whispers. ‘You fuckin’ _asshole_.’

It takes a minute for him to realise that He Tian is laughing at him. Humour fuelled by the realisation that Guan Shan is fine—he’s _fine_ —his relieved laughter quiet, and Guan Shan can’t do a thing as He Tian tugs him in close—‘C’mere, you idiot.’—his feet stumbling, his cheek pressing against the warm crook of He Tian’s neck. Sweat, pinewood, cologne that’s all but worn off by now.

‘You were _scared,_ ’ He Tian says, no shame in the accusation, a touch of delight. 

‘Weren’t you?’ Guan Shan mumbles into his skin, breathing heavily and deep, grabbing fistfuls of He Tian’s jacket.

Indignant: ‘Of course not.’

But here, Guan Shan can feel the lie; He Tian has never mastered the art of controlling his heart. Beneath the skin, Guan Shan can feel He Tian’s pulse against his cheek, too-fast and slowing, as if he’s jumped and is still coming down from the high.

‘You were scared too,’ Guan Shan mumbles. 

‘No, I wasn’t,’ He Tian says, breathing even and almost convincing enough, and Guan Shan closes his eyes, waits for the beating to slow until it’s a strong, steady thudding that Guan Shan knows strong and sure as the forest.

**Author's Note:**

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